


Update

by NeverEverFaceTheDark



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of that, Whump, and also temporal nonsense, includes an explanation for why the Doctor has only hugged Najia so far, very self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:35:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22534828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverEverFaceTheDark/pseuds/NeverEverFaceTheDark
Summary: Yaz smiled, eyes sharp. Her courage had become a determination as hard and resilient as Tillitanium steel, the Doctor couldfeelit."Be sure," she said, anyway.A nod. It wasn't enough. It was never enough. She was always shamefully good at ignoring that.(written pre-series 12, but reflective of its themes)
Relationships: The Doctor & Yasmin Khan, The Doctor/Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan, basically - slightly more than canon-typical thasmin, uhhh mostly misuse of telepathy
Comments: 22
Kudos: 145





	Update

The Doctor had dropped them off.

This was not out of the ordinary per se, but the manner in which they'd all been ushered out the doors of the TARDIS was. The Doctor's energy had turned somehow even more manic than normal - with a hint of panic hidden rather poorly by obviously false cheer.

"Sheffield's right outside!" she'd called, as she herded them to the exit by sheer urgency, colour high in her cheeks. "Have a break! Go see your family" (to Yaz), "do your jobs" (to Ryan and Yaz), "have a walk" (to Graham), "or well, a couple of walks."

"Wait- Doctor-"

Ryan had raised his eyebrows at Yaz but before she could demand any answers they were already standing outside and had the doors slammed shut in their faces.

"Doctor!" Yaz knocked sharply but there was no response from inside. "Doctor!"

Nothing.

"Come on then," Graham sighed, "seems like the Doc needs some alone time."

Alone time? As far as Yaz was aware, the Doctor hated alone time. Though she'd drop them off whenever they asked, she had never suggested a return trip to Sheffield herself (unless it was in severe danger). And though the Doctor had rarely again achieved the level of kicked puppy of their first goodbye, parting from her travel companions always seemed to cause her some anxiety.

Yaz knocked again, more determinedly, but still no answer. She was sure she was being deliberately ignored.

"That wasn't normal was it?" Yaz asked. Ryan shrugged.

"Not really. But she's done weirder stuff. Like eat dirt." He pulled a face.

"We've basically been camping in her house. Maybe she just wants it to herself for a bit. I know I would," Graham said.

Ryan snorted. "Alone-time with the TARDIS," he muttered.

Yaz nodded but wasn't convinced. It wasn't so much that they'd been kicked out, metaphorical bootprint seared into their backsides, but that Yaz felt like there might be something wrong.

She supposed it was up to the Doctor whether she'd involve them or deal with it herself, whatever it was. It was just - they were a team. A gang. A 'fam'. They worked together. They'd stood against the worst their adventures could throw at them and won. What could be so bad that the Doctor needed to deal with it herself?

* * *

"Ughgghhhh," groaned the Doctor, laid out on the floor of the console room. The knocking had stopped, finally. She watched her best friends walk away on screen from the corner of her eye.

Her head was pounding, her throat was dry, her muscles ached, her skin burned. All symptoms of a human experiencing the flu. But she'd already done the scan.

"Ughgghhhh," she said again, this time for dramatic effect, and because she was already feeling lonely.

That was going to be the worst part. She stretched out her arm and put her fingers to the base of the console, for comfort. The TARDIS gave a sympathetic and mournful vworp.

That was exactly why she had to act the moment she became aware of her symptoms. She didn't know if she could have torn herself away from her friends if her state had progressed any further. She would have clung to them like a limpet. Psychic energy all over the place. She shuddered to think of it. On the one hand. On the other, the hole in her chest began to burn only more fiercely at the thought of what she'd given up.

"The doors are deadlocked, dear?" She croaked.

Affirmative bloop. Disapproving bleep.

"What??" The Doctor said grumpily. Ah. Endocrinal fluctuations. Or just the loneliness? Or the miserable feeling of being both too cold and too hot at the same time.

The TARDIS dimmed the lights, and the Doctor sighed in relief.

"It would 'ave been wrong to keep them here," she mumbled, "they're just humans, they can't deal with me..."

She turned on her side, groaning. She was just going to stay here, yeah. She shuffled just a little bit closer to the console, then stilled. She was shivering.

"You'll take care of me, won't you?" The Doctor asked, her voice now plaintive, almost childlike.

Only the TARDIS could communicate tenderness, exasperation, disapproval and assurance with a single sigh of her engines.

The Doctor fell into a restless pseudo-sleep. But however hard the TARDIS tried to comfort her, tears kept on dripping down the Doctor's cheeks.

* * *

Yaz pushed at her terrible pakora listlessly, not really listening to her dad's newest complaints about the neighbourhood, and his corresponding 'theories'. Her mum couldn't even cut him off for being a conspiracy-nut anymore because he'd been right that one time. So instead, Najia applied a different tactic.

"Yasmin, what's got you in this mood?" She asked.

Yaz frowned as the attention at the table shifted to her.

"What mood?" she asked, and instantly regretted it. It was obvious something was eating her and playing dumb was not appreciated in this house. Sonya tsk'd, and took another bite.

Najia gave Yaz a pointed look. "Something going on with...your friends?"

The truth was that the Doctor had dropped them back home on a Saturday, which was completely correct according to the schedule Ryan and Yaz had devised in order to keep up somewhat with work and family. Unfortunately, this meant that it was a weekend day, which was also a free day, a 'family day', which meant Yaz had no shifts to distract her. And Yaz was worried.

Worried about the Doctor. The more she thought about it, the more it niggled at her. Little details. What if she was in trouble? She'd called Ryan to talk it over again, but he'd just done the verbal equivalent of a shrug.

"There's nothing we can do unless she lets us in, mate."

And he was right. Of course he was. It was just. The fact that the Doctor hadn't. Rather, she had forcibly pushed them out.

Yaz wanted to ...help.

"Is it to do with that woman?' Najia said, sharpness creeping into her tone, “the Doc...?"

"The Doctor," Yaz said, putting her fork down.

Now she'd done it, Yaz realised. She'd managed to dodge her mum's attempts to deliver on her promise (threat) of a talk about the Doctor until now, by always pretending to be busy, always about to head out the door. She wasn't going to be able to tonight. She saw it in her mum's eyes. And she had no place to run off to, no wondrous blue box to whisk her away to amazing places and terrible dangers. Not even a late shift to get to.

That only made her feel more uneasy. Grumpy.

"It's nothing mum," she tried. How could she even explain it.

Najia clapped her hands. "Sonya, your turn to clear up."

Sonya groaned.

* * *

The Doctor found it in herself to stir when her thirst grew too great for her to bear. She dragged her body across the floor and slapped a hand down on the biscuit dispenser. A globule popped out with much more force than the biscuits normally did, and the Doctor caught it so handily that it almost seemed like she was lying on the floor by choice. She scarfed the globule down and popped it, swallowing the water inside.

"Thank you," she whispered to the TARDIS. The TARDIS for her part gave the telepathic equivalent of a grudging nod. She was not happy with what had become of her stubborn Thief.

The Doctor pressed her forehead to the cool floor, frame wracked with shudders. Then a sob ripped from her lungs. Then another - and another.

The universe was so empty. Not a single mind like hers that she could find. She was alone here. Her memories burning, and she burning right alongside them. She had no defences in this state. She couldn't run, she couldn't hide. She was too weak for it.

There was no one to distract her, no one to share with, no one who cared. She'd all lost them. She sobbed so hard that she ran out of breath and had to heave for air. She'd sent her friends away. And she should have, yes. They shouldn't share in this. It hurt.

But she missed them. Madly. Deliriously. They were the closest thing to. To something. To something. Who could shield her. They might shield her.

Bright, kind, brilliant, strong, amazing friends. Humans, the best of them.

They always were.

She wished she could share in them, and they could share in her. She would be careful, she would be kind. She would be like them, as best she could.

But she'd locked them out for a reason. What was the reason.

* * *

Najia had sat herself down across from Yaz on the sofa, looking at her meaningfully. But Yaz wasn't going to make this easy. She reached for the remote.

"Yasmin," Najia said. Yaz aborted the movement.

Her dad had decided to busy himself in the kitchen, decidedly in league with his wife. Sonya had fled the house the moment she could, to meet up with some of her mates.

Her family proved as traitorous and maddening as always.

To be fair, Yaz knew this day was going to arrive. She just hadn't liked to think about it. And now she hadn't really come up with a way to explain - any of it.

She sighed. "What?" Her tone was slightly more combative than she'd intended.

Najia kept her own tone gentle. "Are you going to tell me what you've been doing with these new friends of yours?"

"Ryan isn't new." Yaz said, knowing she sounded petulant. Najia just waited.

Yaz reached up to massage her forehead, then sighed. Was this it? Was she going to tell them? There had been a thrill to keeping it secret, keeping things to herself. And was she even going to be believed? Giant spiders was one thing, traveling in a time-space ship was a whole 'nother.

"I know you're an adult now," Najia said when Yaz didn't respond, "but you're my daughter and I want to know what you meant when you said that the Doctor saved your life 'a couple times over.' Because...that means that your life has been in danger."

Yaz really regretted letting that slip now. She could just get up and go for a walk. But she really couldn't. She looked up.

"You know how the Doctor saved us from getting eaten by giant spiders?"

Najia nodded slowly.

"That, but a couple times over."

Najia narrowed her eyes.

"When did you meet this Doctor?"

Yaz did some very quick calculations in her head. It had only been ....two weeks? from her family's point of view. But for Yaz...how many weeks had it been? She'd tried to keep track at first, but generally she only returned to Sheffield when longing for a sense of familiarity, or admittedly, when she missed her family a bit too much. The time inside the TARDIS seemed like a different dimension.

"I met her during an incident on the job," Yaz started, "and then...d'ya remember Ryan's nan?"

Yaz hesitated. She was telling it the wrong way round.

"The Doctor... She saved this bloke from...getting kidnapped. It was amazing, mum! She just, _did_ it, stopped the bad guy, she jumped from a crane!"

Yaz paused. Her mum didn't look reassured at all.

"What I mean is, she finds people trying to hurt others, or she finds people in trouble, and she really _does_ something. Like with the spiders, you saw her! And I...help. Not just that though, it's not just dangerous. It's amazing. We get to see things we never could've imagined."

"We meaning you and Ryan and his granddad?"

"Yeah - Graham." Yaz could see her mum think: odd sort of group. She could see her think: how? From her perspective, Yaz hadn't left the house for long enough to have more adventures.

"Where have you found the time to see these 'amazing things' and help the Doctor stop more of these spiders and kidnappers popping up in Sheffield?" Najia's eyes flashed. "You have been going to work, haven't you?"

"Of course!" The implication that she'd given up on her job - a job she'd wanted since she was a kid - that was offensive. Even if settling parking disputes grew only more and more boring by the shift. But somehow that was more alright now, like a bit of a break - though she got sick of it quick enough. The uniform felt both familiar and out of place on her body.

She couldn't imagine going back forever...

Though Yaz didn't realise, she frowned deeply at the thought, as it led her back to the Doctor's strange behaviour. They hadn't done anything wrong had they? The Doctor wasn't upset with them? What if she went by the TARDIS and it wasn't there? What if the Doctor had left? Najia studied her daughter.

"If everything is so wonderful, what's wrong now?"

"The Doctor...she -"

How to say 'she kicked us out' without it sounding quite so dire - or quite so strange?

"Did you have a falling out?"

"No!" Yaz shook her head decidedly, there hadn't even been time for anything like that.

"She just...wanted to be alone I think..."

"But you're worried."

Yaz nodded slowly. Najia studied her.

"Anything like giant spiders?"

"I...I don't know.' Yaz hesitated, "Maybe, but we took those on, together! And we survived - we saved the city." Najia noted the glow in her eyes. "If she's got a problem, we could help. I could help. She shouldn't have to deal with it on her own, whatever it is. That's...what we do."

Najia sat back, and considered her options; considered her wonderful, smart, competent daughter, who had few friends, and who she knew very well wanted to do _more_ \- who grumbled in frustration after every shift and had many more months to go until her probation's end. And now... just two weeks of contact with this strange Doctor had brought out a light in her - even on that very first day she'd noticed it. It had been so obvious that she'd thought Yaz might even have been in love. Then there were Ryan and his granddad - which spoke for this whole situation. Unless Yaz had become involved with a cult. She would have to google the warning signs.

"Yaz," Najia said, "when you decided to become a police officer, I realised I would have to deal with some fears about you putting yourself in danger." She put a hand on Yaz's arm, even as the girl shifted in half dismissal, half acknowledgement. "You're in training so you can be prepared for danger - but the risk doesn't go away."

She paused.

"What you're up to with your friends, does your police training prepare you for the danger it puts you in?"

Yaz started on a frown, but Najia forestalled her response with a squeeze.

"Think on it. I just don't want you - eaten by some spider." She smiled weakly.

"The Doctor is good at keeping us safe," Yaz said. "We're good at keeping _each other_ safe," she amended, a fierce look creeping into her eyes. "And...I'm trying to learn, I'm learning a lot, mum."

Najia nodded slowly. The truth was that Yaz had always been a very straight-laced kid - maybe too much so. She had never forbidden her daughter anything, because she'd never had cause to - quite different from Sonya. Yaz suddenly choosing to associate with what was by all accounts some sort of benign (?) madwoman was not something she'd ever thought likely. But all of this was clearly very important to her.

She sat back.

"Well then."

Yaz looked at her uncertainly.

"Where's this Doctor from exactly? What's her real name? Where can I reach her? Where does she live? What does she do apart from the heroics? She's a teacher? Or a scientist?"

"Errr, sort of yeah."

Najia waited. Yaz looked a bit pained.

"She...travels around a lot. She's a bit eccentric - you may have noticed. And she's...got this tiny house?"

Najia tried not to lift a brow.

"It's a very...cosy place."

"And how can I reach her?"

Yaz looked even more pained.

"I guess I can give you her phone number," she mumbled.

"And Ryan's granddad's," Najia said.

Yaz tried not to roll her eyes. She pulled out her phone wordlessly.

Najia nodded at her new contacts, then levelled her most serious look at her daughter. "Will you promise to let me know when you're off with this Doctor?"

Some hesitation, but - "I will, mum."

"Make sure you get back in time, today, or I _will_ call these numbers."

"What?"

"Weren't you going to help your friend?"

Yaz faltered, then a determined smile bloomed on her face.

"Yeah."

* * *

The TARDIS broke through the Doctor's haze with a hiss, and a telepathic shake that felt physical. The screens had turned on again - pinpricks in the gloom. Then the knocking started. Why was it always the knocking? The Doctor hiccupped, exhausted, still burning. Was this worse than regeneration, or much worse?

The static resolved into a figure she knew. A familiar silhouette, familiar ears, familiar eyebrows - even familiar eyelashes...

It was Yaz! Awesome Yaz! Wonderful Yaz! Brilliant -!

But she was back ...too early. Had she even agreed on a time? Had she forgotten to agree on a time? A later time? A much later time?

Just the thought of continuing like this for even another hour of the days she'd need made the Doctor claw at her face in despair.

The TARDIS jostled her again and she groaned.

"Don't do this to me..." she whispered to her.

"Doctor!" Yaz called through the door. The TARDIS let her lovely voice ring loud and clear through the room. It was a little bit like being electrocuted, if only at low voltage - not much chance of nerve damage.

"Don't -!" She snapped at the TARDIS - but was swept by a wave of memories - battered by them, like being hit in the ectospleen by sonic bomb times 74 point 9. She curled into herself. But it didn't subside. "Doctor," River whispered. "Doctor," Donna said, tears in her eyes, shaking no. "Doctor!" Martha screamed, as she fell into the sun. And much further back, much further back, all the way down her timeline. "Doctor," "Doctor..." "Doctor."

The name was a curse. It was a gift. It was a choice.

"It's not like that," she spat, "that's not me right now, that's not now." But time was always now. Right now. She was always now, crashed in the now.

She yelped. Screamed maybe? The knocking stopped. "Doctor!?"

The Doctor hit the floor with her fist. There was a reason that those doors were normally soundproof. Privacy! she thought furiously at the TARDIS. A privacy that was doing her horrid favours, right now, yes, that was true, but -

Yaz seemed to have resorted to trying to bash open a deadlocked TARDIS with her shoulder.

"Doctor if there's something wrong, you've got to let me in!"

It was searingly sweet, the determination in Yaz's voice, no panic, just a genuine authoritative plea. It made her want to cry, but then she realised she was already crying. Again? Still? She needed another one of those water globules. She needed...

" _Please!_ Doctor!"

She crumpled herself into an even tighter ball, as pure emotion assaulted her, a singularity of bad things. Why did it have to be bad things? Yaz _wanted_ to help her. She could taste it on her tongue. And she wanted so desperately to be helped. She'd always been weakest to her friends...

She wavered.

"Alright," she whispered to the TARDIS. Both doors instantly slammed wide open and Yaz stumbled in.

"Doctor?" Yaz had never seen the crystals so dim, it took her eyes a few seconds to adjust. Then she spotted her, a small heap of grey coat with some blonde hair peeking out, right by the console. She ran up the steps of the dais as the doors creaked shut behind her, and kneeled down. Her hands hovered for a moment over her form, but then she reached for her wrist and checked her pulse. Two heartbeats...and noticeably hot and clammy skin.

"Doctor, can you hear me?" she asked, thinking about her first aid training and how that might apply to an alien. Thinking about their adventures and what could have done this to the Doctor in her own domain. Knowing that it could still be here, lurking - whatever it was - made her scan the shadows quickly. Did she have a chance against it? It had lost the element of surprise.

The Doctor did not respond, so she turned her a little, hands on her face, checking her breathing - elevated - then checking her over for any wounds. None that she could see. She was shivering. Had she been poisoned? Her eyes were scrunched shut, her face was wet with...tears? Had the Doctor been crying? Yaz's heart unexpectedly _ached_ at the possibility. Then new tears tracked down the Doctor's face. Was she conscious?

Yaz's hands skimmed over the Doctor's skin professionally, but the Doctor shuddered at every touch. "Doctor? Can you hear me? What's happened? What's wrong?" But the Doctor was lost in the disorienting warmth that was Yaz, her being a shining light against her eyelids. Well, in a telepathic sense. Tingles raced up and down her nerves - quite specifically in her brain. Impressions flashed across her mind, as though kneading clay, or being the clay that was kneaded.

The TARDIS shook her again and she grabbed Yaz's wrist in a flash, lifting her searching fingers from the pulse point in her throat. Yaz jolted.

"Doctor?"

"Yaz," she croaked. Then coughed a bit.

"What's wrong with you? Who did this to you?"

The Doctor smiled ruefully at that, cracking open an eye.

"Me, myself and mine," she couldn't resist saying. Yaz's frowning face came fuzzily into view. The Doctor felt some sort of scolding coming on, right through the leather of Yaz's jacket that she'd wrapped her fingers around.

"I'm sick," she said quickly.

A prickle of confused alarm. Yaz's gaze flickered.

"Is it deadly?"

"No, no," the Doctor said, "at least it shouldn't be. I don't think so, no. Not infectious either. Well. In a way. You could say. It's not really sick so much as, an - affliction? You know how -"

"Doctor," Yaz cut in, a tad relieved, "are you saying that you kicked us out because you're ill? We could have helped you get to bed at least!"

The Doctor coughed again, miserably, and she realised she was sweating. Really sweating. Plain bathing in sweat, droplets tickling the skin of her back. The muscles in her arm were trembling from exhaustion. Or something else?

"Come on," Yaz said, tone exasperated, incredulous and relieved all at once, and the Doctor realised she'd lost some time, "let's get you into bed."

Yaz bent forward, grabbing onto her arms, slipping right out of the Doctor's own grip. The Doctor was like a sack of sand, absolute dead weight. Yaz was very glad for her biweekly regimen of squats - lift with the legs and all that.

"Up you go, Doctor."

"Yaz," the Doctor panted, scrabbling weakly at the floor with her feet and winding a few fingers in Yaz's jumper. "Yaz I don't need to get to bed, I need -"

She seized so violently that she dislodged Yaz's grip.

"Doctor!"

"No!"

But it was too late, Yaz had put her hand out to keep the Doctor's head from banging on the floor. She pulled it back from her skin with a gasp.

The Doctor turned away from Yaz but could not muffle the horrible keening sound that came out of her mouth.

Yaz had never heard anything like it, her stomach churned in horror as it petered out.

The wave of pain passed, and the Doctor managed to get her teeth into the sleeve of her coat.

Yaz looked from the heaving pile of her to her hand. It still tingled. Her _brain_ still tingled. It had been like touching a white-hot pan.

"...Doctor... why were you crying?"

"Yaz," the Doctor said softly, as Yaz stared at her back, "you can walk away."

The Doctor clenched her fists till the knuckles went white.

Yaz blinked in surprise, then the beginnings of offense. "What?"

"I didn't mean for that to happen. Didn't mean to open the doors. Didn't really mean to end up like this either - but can't have everything - well mostly nothing, in this case."

A wave of concern studded with impatience rolled off of Yaz.

"Tell me what's going on!" She demanded, "and, how can I help?"

The Doctor tried to regain her breath, tried to work through what she needed to say.

"I've got to anchor myself for a bit. " Yaz waited. "I've gotta... you could help. But it's...invasive. And it's unnecessary - I'll survive, this isn't lethal just - just well."

"Painful?" Yaz said.

The Doctor swallowed down some bile. "Yes," she admitted. It was quiet for a second - or a day - really - there was no telling.

"So I can help you get better?"

"You can help me feel better - I'll get better on my own."

"And...how will I feel?"

The Doctor rolled onto her back, her muscles groaning in protest, so she could see Yaz's face: courage set clearly in the few lines of her face. Something to be _discouraged_ really. But it was just so brilliant.

"Nothing like this," she flapped a hand at her own crumpled form, "I would never - I will never ask you that. Just." She hesitated, then blushed, actually felt the heat pool in her cheeks.

"Doctor?" Yaz asked, alarmed.

This was bad, she did not want this. It was unthinkable. She wanted this very badly, very much. She could not do this? Could she?

_(There is nothing I can’t do.)_

She groaned far back in her throat. Shook her head.

Yaz shifted, sitting down, crossing her legs. She did not try to reach out to touch this time. She'd been burned. The Doctor had already burned her. In ways they probably didn't even know about. Hadn't that always been his problem? Isn't that what he did to people? She'd tried to be so careful.

She wanted this to be over. Despair gripped her, fresh tears welling up, making the TARDIS lights flicker kaleidoscopically. Soon, now, it would spin out into past and future. She tried to hold on from a distance. It was like catching sunlight.

Then Yaz took her hand.

A cool river on a summer's day.

"Doctor, does this help?"

Not yet, she wanted to say. You shouldn't, I think, really, you shouldn't, probably, she wanted to say.

"I'm not very good at this, " she said instead, "did I ever tell you, I barely made it through school?"

Yaz smiled, eyes sharp. Her courage had become a determination as hard and resilient as Tillitanium steel, the Doctor could _feel_ it.

"Be sure," she said, anyway.

A nod. It wasn't enough. It was never enough. She was always shamefully good at ignoring that.

"Imagine a room. A room you're comfortable in, that you know inside and out, that feels like home - and close every single door and window that leads to it."

_And then._

* * *

Yaz woke up. She couldn't remember falling asleep. Couldn't remember whether it was late or early or what had happened before she'd lost consciousness - which meant she'd probably taken a nap after a shift. She was lying in her very own bed in her childhood bedroom in her family's flat. It smelled exactly like it should - like clothes and dust and sunlight and herself. Her limbs felt as sleep-heavy as her brain.

But it was dark. The night so quiet that it must really be very late. Yaz blinked, trying to adjust. She was quite sure that her room had never been this dark.

And something else was in the room with her.

She could hear it breathing.

Adrenaline flushed her system.

A burglar?

An alien?

"Both. At times."

The Doctor.

She was standing by the window, looking out through a single opening in the curtains. One stripe of light (light?) slashed across her face. Utterly still in that way she got sometimes, coiled like a spring, eyes simultaneously flat and bottomless. Seeing her in the middle of her bedroom at this time (what time?) felt entirely incongruous.

The Doctor turned her head to look at Yaz. She attempted a smile but did not quite manage.

"Try not to think things like that. The room might listen."

A knife of disquiet cut through Yaz. She struggled up onto her arms.

"Are - are.... _you_ listening?"

"It's hard not to."

Yaz remembered holding the Doctor's hand. She remembered her feverish eyes, her slurred speech. This Doctor seemed completely unafflicted.

"Where are we?"

She tried to sit up further, tried to untangle herself from the heavy duvet.

"We're currently inside a memory of, presumably, your bedroom."

A memory of. "So we're in my mind. You're in my head. That's why you can hear my thoughts."

"Sort of."

For once, the Doctor did not seem particularly excited about explaining the intricacies of the situation.

"Are you still in pain?"

This time, the Doctor did smile, though halfway through it suddenly appeared quite watery.

"No. Thanks to you."

Yaz managed to roll out of bed. Quite literally. She pulled herself up from the floor slowly.

The Doctor had turned back to the window. "Don't open the door."

Yaz eyed it warily. It looked like her normal bedroom door. "Why?"

"The rest of your memories are behind it."

That was a decidedly strange thought. What would her memories look like? Would they be a certain colour? Would they fly in like birds? Or flow into the room like a wave?

"It's mostly to prevent me having access to them. It's an imagined door. An imagined closed door, so try not to imagine it open."

Right... There were some things that she probably didn't want the Doctor to know about. Suddenly, she was rather desperately trying to clear her mind of some embarrassing pink elephants. But when she checked to see if the Doctor had noticed those particular thoughts popping up she still seemed to be fixated on whatever was happening outside. Yaz could not remember her so motionless for so _long_ \- ever. Even when she was hurt, her every particle seemed to buzz with a particular brand of energy. Not now.

"I'm hiding," she answered, again, unbidden, "I can't run here."

Abruptly, the light across the Doctor's face grew like an ink blot, the edges of her golden hair igniting into a flaming halo, her ear chain a shining star. The outlines and folds of Yaz's curtains lit up, the room suddenly so blindingly bright it was like lightning had frozen in the sky, but hotter in colour, more like the sun had exploded. The Doctor did not turn away from the source behind the glass, did not even blink as Yaz put a hand up with a yelp to protect her eyes.

It took an absurdly long time for the blaze to fade, for shadows to come back into existence, to lengthen into corners and envelop the furniture. Yaz blinked away tears. But that was not the end of it.

A deep thrum followed, penetrating down to her bones, growing only lower and louder until her very cells seemed to be trembling, until the air was shaking. She stumbled, fell to one knee but knew instinctively that pressing her hands to her ears would make no difference. It seemed literal ages until the sound of her own breathing returned to her.

The Doctor seemed not to have moved one hair, her sight unharmed, as her clear gaze swivelled slowly back to Yaz.

"I'm taking shelter."

 _"What_ is out there?!"

The Doctor seemed to hesitate.

" _My_ memories, of course. And worse, I'm sure." Her tone was wry.

Yaz wobbled up on to her feet again. There was something seriously wrong here. She stepped forward to open the curtains and see.

The Doctor snatched the sides together and physically placed herself in front of them in one wild motion. She'd gone pale, her expression not just panicked but also baffled and reproachful.

"Don't look!"

Yaz let her arm drop slowly, a bit shocked.

Shame and guilt stole over the Doctor's face. It was painfully raw, like she was sure she'd done something unforgivable, like Yaz was going to tell her that she hated her and she was going to leave forever. It was her hopeless-no-TARDIS-I-failed-you-face a hundred times over.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"It's private?" Yaz asked gently, kicking herself mentally for not fully realising that obvious implication.

The Doctor nodded slowly, like that wasn't the whole story.

The Doctor was normally pretty expressive, but she seemed actually easy to read right now, like several facades had peeled away.

 _You've done me a favour that you cannot ever understand the significance of,_ the Doctor's eyes seemed to say. _And it was wrong and stupid and I can't let you see any of this and I can't ask for anything more -_

Yaz frowned.

The Doctor looked away.

"Doctor...does the mind-reading go both ways?"

Now she just looked embarrassed.

"I told you, I wasn't the best student."

Hm.

"So what now?"

"What now?" She seemed stumped for a moment. It was a much more familiar look on her. "Now. Well. You should probably go back to sleep."

"Why?"

"This," she waved her hand at the room, "will pass like a dream for you." She still hadn't dared look Yaz in the eye again, and she still blocked the way to the window.

"What about you?"

"I'll....stay and watch, I s'pose." Her attention shifted to what was at her back and her mouth turned down into a grimace.

"Is that what you needed? Is _this_ what you needed?"

The Doctor didn't answer. No babble of assurances or denial. She seemed incapable of them here.

Yaz took one careful step closer.

"Tell me what you actually needed," she demanded, shifting into her best police voice automatically.

The Doctor shook her head, eyes furiously trained on the far wall.

She looked like a child, or a skittish animal backed into a corner. Yaz realised that this was her room, and that the Doctor was her guest.

Yaz noticed the dark circles under her eyes. She was sure they had not been there before she'd thought to look. The Doctor looked completely exhausted. "Why don't you go to sleep too?" Yaz tried, "aren't you tired?"

"That's your bed," the Doctor said.

Yaz shrugged. "We'll fit." Then she yawned.

The Doctor muffled her own responding yawn.

Yaz took another step closer.

She put her hand very lightly on her coat-covered arm. The Doctor shook her head minutely.

"I couldn't."

"Why not?"

Every single thing about the way the Doctor held herself, the way her face was turned, the sudden fidgeting of her fingers, was full of warring messages, desperation and guilt and a sense of hunger. Like she was trapped - that was it. Like she wanted to be here too much. Like she was holding herself back, stuck in a cage of her own making. Yaz was swept momentarily by the feeling that she was doing something deeply wrong, something irresponsible, exploitative, dangerous. That she'd share too much - see too much - show too much - and break everything. Yaz recognised abruptly that this was not reserved for only this situation. Yaz realised that the Doctor was acutely afraid.

"I won't let anything bad happen." To you.

Isn't that what the Doctor was always telling them, by jumping through the TARDIS doors last no matter what monsters were chasing them? By shielding them from sonic bombs? By putting herself physically between whatever danger had revealed itself and them every single time? Isn't that what Yaz admired more than anything? What she'd wanted to be more than half her life? Ever since that awful, terrible year. A protector.

The Doctor was a guest in _Yaz's_ room.

The Doctor sighed, slumped until every bit of tension had leaked right out, and slowly loosened her white-knuckled grip on the curtains. "I'm sorry," she mumbled.

"You can trust me."

The Doctor shook her head, "I shouldn't have to. You shouldn't have to..."

"Are you hearing yourself? We're friends. Right?"

The Doctor paused, "Yes."

Yaz gave a soft push on her arm.

The Doctor moved with the push, shuffled a foot forward, and another, and another until she flopped belly first onto the bed. Yaz grabbed the duvet that had tangled up half on the floor and shook it out over her. She imagined that she was covering her up with something that'd protect her from outside harm. Maybe that would work in this weird mind-scape. Then she poked the Doctor until she rolled herself over to the wall, and Yaz could crawl under too.

She was instantly comfortable and warm, her every muscle unspooling in satisfaction at the relief, as though she'd been running the whole day. The Doctor's breath had already steadied and Yaz turned her gaze from the ceiling to take a peek, but her friend had not yet closed her eyes fully. Two slivers of hazel softly gleamed, reflecting the unearthly glow, her face smushed adorably into the pillow. Yaz turned back, felt her own eyelids droop and dreams start to take shape behind them.

The room was coloured a comforting and dark burnt orange. The familiar smells of dry sand, dust and hay curled in gently from outside the window.

Pain bloomed in her chest and her lungs spasmed. Her eyes burned with tears. A horrifically empty, hollow feeling forced its way up from her chest to her throat and she sobbed, completely swallowed by the feeling like a child that knows nothing but the current moment. Nobody could hear, but she still tried to stifle her sobs, holding her breath, then taking shuddering, ragged gulps of air. She could not hold off the surge of tears, and she curled up, hugging her knees tightly to her body, cheeks wet.

All she wanted was her mum. He just wanted his mum. That’s all he wanted. It wasn't fair -

The door creaked open just slightly.

A silhouette moved towards the bed, the shape and the cadence of footsteps so, so familiar.

"What's wrong?" Yaz's mum asked softly, voice sleep-cracked, her warm hands directing Yaz into her arms.

Yaz cried herself out into her shoulder in great heaves, her mum rubbing soothing circles into her back.

What was wrong? What was she crying about? She'd been so sad and so hurt. But it didn't matter any more - everything was OK now. Her mum was here.

Eventually she calmed down, stopped hiccuping, and she was settled back under the duvet, the sides tucked in. A last kiss landed on her temple.

Her throat was raw, her heart tired.

The door creaked gently shut.

The Doctor finally closed her eyes.

* * *

It was 1 a.m.

Yaz wasn't back yet.

Najia looked at the clock again, then at her phone, which also told the time but said 1:01 a.m. No texts or calls. And Yaz wasn't picking up.

Hakim had gone to bed already. They'd had a short discussion about the talk after Yaz had grabbed her coat and ran out the door.

She had added 'Graham O'Brien' and 'That Doctor' to her contacts, and currently hovered a finger over the phone app.

She tapped 'That Doctor'. She let the phone ring thirty times before she gave up.

She tapped 'Graham O'Brien'.

* * *

"Here we are," Graham said, trying to keep up his pacifying tone.

Najia looked around, but wasn't sure where 'here' was supposed to be, on the corner of the block.

"This is where the Doctor should be, so if Yaz went to see her they should both be here."

"Where?"

Ryan yawned behind them. "The blue box." Graham pointed.

Najia blinked, her brain had dismissed it as a thing in the background, but now that she'd noticed it, it stuck out like a sore thumb. Uncanny. Suspicious.

Then she realised the implications of what Graham had said.

"They're both in there?"

"Well it's a lot bigger -"

"Gramps," Ryan interjected.

"- than it seems."

Yaz had said something about a tiny house, but this was basically a broom closet.

Najia frowned very hard at Graham. Graham smiled back disarmingly.

He gave a knock on the doors. "Doctor?" he asked, as though he was knocking on a bathroom door, "is Yaz in there with you?"

Najia's eyebrows changed direction and climbed up into her hairline.

Nothing happened.

Ryan stepped up next to him and said softly, "Granddad, maybe we should ask...the TARDIS if she'll open the doors?"

Graham was acutely aware of the judging eyes drilling into his back, and his expression conveyed quite clearly that he wouldn't _normally_ speak to a questionably animate alien box-space ship, and now definitely wasn't the time to start.

Ryan shrugged encouragingly.

Graham sighed. Then cleared his throat.

"TARDIS....would you please open the doors?"

Graham winced.

"We're just trying to make sure that Yaz and the Doctor are alright," Ryan added.

A few moments passed and Graham's stomach sank. He'd told Najia on the phone, after shuffling down the stairs in his pyjamas, that yes, Yaz going to meet the Doctor and then going missing was pretty strange, and yes, he might have an idea where they could be, and yes he supposed that he could go change and meet with her and bring her to the place, no he didn't have an address, and he had to add that he wasn't sure that he could help.

After all, he had no idea how to get into the TARDIS or how to track either Yaz or the Doctor down if neither was answering their phones. Not to mention that bringing Yaz's mum here possibly wasn’t what either of them wanted.

But how was he going to say no to Yaz's mum?

The door creaked open.

"It worked!" Ryan whispered, exhilarated.

Graham just stared, befuddled. Maybe the Doctor wasn't actually having him on about the ship.

Ryan stepped right in, and Graham turned to Najia. "We'll just go have a look -"

Najia marched past him and pushed the doors wide open.

Her brain was once again walloped by a sight that clashed severely with her expectations, and she struggled for a few moments to even recognise the sense of depth from the box, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. She blinked her eyes furiously, and she experienced a bit of vertigo as the images her eyes were recording lined up. She put a hand to the wall of the box. Because there WAS a box, there was just a.... a cavern behind it, with giant glowing crystals, and...metal walls, and a bubble made of glass panels. But. What was - how?

Ryan moved by the centre, kneeling down. On the floor by him lay two bodies. Najia shoved the impossibility of it all aside in an instant and rushed up, catching the fear surging up her veins in a mental vice grip.

Graham jogged up right behind her. Yaz and the Doctor lay side by side, the Doctor on her back, Yaz on her belly, and they were holding hands. It would have looked very sweet if not for their deathly stillness.

"Yaz, mate, wake up!" Ryan was shaking Yaz a bit, turning her over. Najia grabbed her face.

"Yaz!"

Graham bent down over the Doctor. "Doctor?" He put a hand on her forehead, feeling her temperature, desperately trying to think of what Grace would have done in this situation.

The Doctor shot upright. Graham pulled his hand back with a jolt.

They all stared at each other for a moment, frozen.

Then the Doctor's fuzzy eyes fell on Najia.

"Yaz's mum!"

She grabbed her in a hug, as firm and enthusiastic as last time, if somehow a little more desperate.

Najia was too stunned to protest - also quite a lot like last time.

The Doctor pulled back a moment later and looked down at her hands.

"Ah. That explains the hugging," she said.

"What - what have you done to Yaz? Will she be alright?"

"Huh?" The Doctor refocused on Najia, then on the girl lying next to her, "Oh. Yeah. I think so."

She hovered her face over Yaz's face.

"Yaz!" she whispered loudly.

Yaz groaned, then shifted.

The Doctor levered herself off the ground, ignoring Graham's offered helping hand and stumbled around to the other side of the console, busying herself with the controls so suddenly and intently that it must have been pretence. Or, Graham thought, monsters were actually coming to kill them all and she was simply making very necessary preparations – you never knew.

Yaz's eyes fluttered open, and Najia breathed relief itself.

"Mum?"

"Yaz," Najia said, not knowing whether to feel angry or happy or something else. She hugged her daughter tightly.

Yaz blinked at Ryan over her mum's shoulder, who grinned widely at her and then mouthed "what happened??"

Yaz realised they were in the TARDIS and her mum was there. Her mum was in the TARDIS.

"Mum - what are you doing here?!"

When Najia finally released her hold on her daughter, Yaz tried to get her legs under her to scramble up from the floor.

"No, no, no," the Doctor called, "don't get up yet."

"Doctor?" Yaz looked around wildly for her when she spotted her peeking around the central column. The Doctor waved at her, her smile subdued, or perhaps even bashful.

"You're going to feel a little disoriented for a while, I'm afraid."

"What happened?" Najia asked.

The Doctor waved a hand.

"Doctor.” Najia repeated, menace edging her every word, “tell me what happened."

The Doctor wavered. "Just a bit of a matrix update crash," she mumbled.

"What?" Yaz asked for all of them. The Doctor looked down into her big, dark, clouded, curious eyes. Arguably, her greatest weakness.

"Not quite the perfect metaphor but, you know how you can't run a program sometimes without an update of certain drivers and then it can mess with more than it should and it bugs out the whole system?" she babbled.

"Not really," said Ryan.

"Well, that, but not quite and the inverse of that."

"So... you're the update," Yaz said, squinting her eyes. The Doctor grinned despite herself. Ten points!

"Generally yeah, but the cloud's off on the end of time and in a different dimension."

Graham raised an eyebrow. "...so you crashed? Are you a robot?"

"I said it wasn't a perfect metaphor!"

Najia, who was still kneeled down by Yaz on the floor to support her sitting up, was not satisfied.

"I could not follow any of that," she said with narrowed eyes, "how did Yaz get caught up in this 'crash'?"

The Doctor chose her words slowly. "Well, your daughter, awesome human that she is, helped me out a bit." She ducked her head, cheeks dusted with just a tiny bit of red, "she really saved me." Yaz and the Doctor shared a profound look that went on for much too long by Najia's standards.

"Who are you really? And what is this place?" she interrupted decisively.

The Doctor paled when she recognised the expression on her face. Why could she never be popular with the mothers? It's not like anyone had been in lethal danger this time, the Doctor lamented very much inside her own head.

"Mum!" Yaz protested.

"Now! Is the perfect time to discuss all of this, I think." Najia said sharply, gesturing at the TARDIS and everything it contained, which for its part gave a bit of a bloop. "And you certainly did not tell me the whole story, did you?"

Yaz wilted.

The Doctor looked very much like she wanted to kick everybody out and lock the doors again. And run very far away.

Najia took a deep breath.

"I want all of you up in our flat in five minutes," she said. Then she turned to Graham and Ryan, who stood promptly to attention. "That includes you two." They nodded immediately.

The Doctor nodded along. This time, she couldn’t possibly say no to Yaz's mum.

"Tea at Yaz's?" she attempted a winsome smile. "Brilliant."

"It's two a.m.," Najia replied.

**Author's Note:**

> Time Lords losing track of time is not a pretty sight or experience a.k.a. the Doctor has a real bad trip.  
> Yaz does not know basic telepathic etiquette (but she really dealt very well with turtling Doctor huh!)  
> Through writing this fanfic I have come to a new potential headcanon on the Doctor’s mother (&this being an additional reason for their complicated relationships with Mothers throughout time and space beyond always endangering their kids)  
> Nobody! Says no to Yaz’s mum! (not even the TARDIS?)
> 
> Please let me know what you think!!


End file.
